


Running in Circles, Coming Up Tails

by waltzmatildah



Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-26
Updated: 2013-05-26
Packaged: 2017-12-13 00:16:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/817720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waltzmatildah/pseuds/waltzmatildah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Oh, let's go back to the start...</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Running in Circles, Coming Up Tails

He feels his face twist into a well-worn smirk, the slip and slide of muscle memory that needs no conscious control.

At odds, for once, with the sudden dip in his gut, because…

“Isobel Stevens.”

White teeth, white, white, white, and a smile that doesn’t falter.

“Izzie,” she says, “You can call me Izzie.”

 

 

He settled on Seattle for one reason. It was the only offer he got that wasn’t within the bounds of his home state.

Tells himself it’s not really running away when he packs his car up; points it west.

It’s closer to LA, he rationalises. To boob jobs and nose jobs and cleft palate surgeries on babies too tiny to appreciate the shit-storm they’ve been dealt.

_You can call me Izzie,_ she says, and he smirks because it’s his default setting, but the ground shifts inches to the left beneath his feet and his insides don’t match his outsides for one split, shaking second.

 

 

He runs to work most days, hidden in clouds of his own billowing breath, so that he doesn’t punch things. Walls, patients, other surgeons.

A tactic he learned before he’d hit double digits and it’s served him well over the years.

For the most part.

_You can call me Izzie,_ she says, and the smirk his lips fall into feels false for the first time in years.

Like maybe the skin around his teeth no longer belongs to just him.

 

 

He screws up more than he gets right. They roll their eyes at him, whisper behind his back.

But he’s always screwed up more than he’s ever gotten right; this is no different.

He’d never expected anything else.

He listens; they think that he doesn’t. He learns; they don’t notice that he never makes the same mistake twice.

_You can call me Izzie,_ she says. Lets the syllables roll around his cavernous insides; fill him up.

Full.

Overflowing.

 

 

“Okay,” he says. “Izzie.”

It feels like a dare.

 

 

“I’m Alex.”


End file.
